So many reasons the NFL won't work in L.A. (again)
Football fans cheer for the return of the Rams to Los Angeles on the site of the old Hollywood Park horse-racing track in Inglewood, Calif. on Tuesday.
(Damian Dovarganes / AP)
Steve RosenbloomContact ReporterThe RosenBlog
Stan Kroenke might build something spectacular in Southern California -- a lot more spectacular than a Jeff Fisher-coached team deserves -- but sorry, I still see the NFL failing in Los Angeles.
Failing again.
It failed about two decades ago, longer if you count Mike Shanahan’s stint coaching the Raiders.
Nobody in L.A. cares about football long enough. This goes double when Nick Foles is your quarterback.
Traffic will only become worse, if that’s possible in a far-flung, auto-centric town where people call Ubers to drive them to the bathroom.
Eventually, everybody will figure out that the worst place to watch a football game is in a football stadium, even the Taj Mahal of football stadiums.
Oh, the Rams move will look like a hit for the first few years. Celebrities will show up at the start because that’s what celebrity handlers engineer.
But then they’ll see more Fisher-coached teams, and then they’ll figure out they can’t be seen the way they are at a Lakers or Clippers game.
St. Louis Rams fans express their disappointment after the NFL said the Rams can move to Los Angeles. The Rams were one of three NFL teams considering the move. The San Diego Chargers could relocate there as well. Jan. 13, 2016. (AP)
It’s all about product placement in Hollywood, especially when the product is the celebrity, not a pop can.
Then the glitterati will move on to the next big thing, and there’s always a next big thing in Hollywood.
As for the civilians -- that’s what celebrities call human beings who aren’t one of them -- if they wanted the NFL, it would’ve been there already the way it was in Cleveland.
The Browns left for Baltimore after the 1995 season, and there was a new Browns franchise by the 1999 season. Southern California lost the Rams before Cleveland lost the Browns, but only now, almost a generation later, is Southern California getting a new team, actually an old team, and one that was routed by the Bears this season.
The NFL has always wanted L.A. more than L.A. wanted the NFL. It must kill the NFL that the second-biggest market wasn’t slobbering all over itself to throw money at a $12 billion industry that is one of the last businesses that should be begging for freebies.
L.A. is not a sports town. L.A. is a Dodgers town and a Lakers town. Well, a Dodgers town and a Magic Johnson-Kareem Abdul-Jabbar-Kobe Bryant-Shaquille O’Neal town.
More pointedly, however, it’s a Hollywood town, and football mirrors Hollywood only in that romances turn bad and someone has to leave.
Rams' move to Los Angeles gets plenty of reaction on social media
There must be some symmetry to the Not For Long league moving to the not-for-long city.
The Rams left L.A. for Anaheim before they left for St. Louis, and if you don’t think it’s a big deal going behind the Orange Curtain from L.A., then try driving it sometime.
The Raiders moved from Oakland and lasted 13 seasons before fleeing back to Oakland. How bad of a football town must you be to lose a Super Bowl-winning team to stinkin’ Oakland?
And don’t forget that the Chargers started in L.A. before moving to San Diego.
In L.A., sports isn’t one of the main passions the way it is in Chicago. Good luck to the Rams (and maybe the Chargers) in challenging the five greatest L.A. obsessions:
- Cutting movie deals
- Cutting TV deals
- Cutting digital streaming deals
- SPF15
- Botox
Copyright © 2016, Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...l-los-angeles-rosenbloom-20160114-column.html
Is there a common theme to all of these articles? St. Louis BEGGED them to stay. L.A. doesn't even seem to want them that much. Of course, I guess that will soon be determined.
